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My Cat, who I rescured off the street 5 years ago keeps getting int vicious fights with other cats. I have had to take her to the vet 2X in 10 months...Over the years, I've decreased her outdoor hours. But comming from a semi-ferrel background she will always have that instict to roam the neighborhood...Nevertheless, I would like to build her an enclose cat habitate, either in the yard, an enclosed deck, or a new room in the house.

 

Anyone know anyone who specializes in building cat habiates for a fee in NJ? I know this is super specialized, but they do have such people on some of the cat shows on the Animal Channel.

 

Thanks

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Can't help you there but I'd try reaching out to cat rescues or TNR groups and asking them for suggestions.  In the meantime, prohibit her from being outdoors and walk her.  Yes... as in on a harness and leash, until you can find a better alternative.  Sounds silly but I'd prefer to do that than risk injury to my pet.  

 

Good luck.

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If you have a room in your house or a enclosed porch you may want to think about just going to your local pet store and buying a few cat trees/condos (the things for them to climb on or in that are covered in carpet) and putting a few of them in the room along with a shelf just below the window sill to let her look outside. Add a bunch of cat toys and the cat will be good to go. I would not put anything in the room that can not be replaced because cats love to destroy all that stuff. It may be depressed at first that she cant go out side but she will get over it. It is in your cats best interest to not roam the streets weather she knows it or not. I have to scrape dead kittys off the street almost weekly and it really sucks when I have to contact the owner and tell them that fluffy is dead. 

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Oh, I forgot to say, no lectures about the outdoor cat thing please - I have heard them all...It like any other risk, your kids leaving the house, or any of us getting in an automobile...Risk vs  freedom is almost always a trade off...For a cat, for our kids, for us.

 

I am looking to still give her some freedom but with managable risk...She is not ready yet, although slowly I am cutting back on her outdoor hours, for a full time indoor experience (would that be a Nanny State ;-)).

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Bring her inside, not a rant but a solution. All my cats have been strays or ferals, they get over the outside thing.

That is my long term goal...

 

But that aside, because even if she was an all-indoor cat, I would like her to enjoy an enclosed space outside.

 

So the two things are not mutaully exclusive.

 

For this thread, I'd like to focus on the outdoor (enclosed) habitate thing. If I have to do it myself fine, but I'd rather pay some one who might specialize in such things. -If they exist in NJ.

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I have the same problem. We have a sweet, 18-year-old female we raised from weaning, and a 9-year-old male which we took in when he was 8-9 months old. He's never been "right." If you own cats you know what I mean.

 

One sound piece of advice and one whimsical:

 

When you take in strays or rescue animals you're assuming other people's (or animals') problems. I should have learned this from my one and only dog, but didn't (see above). It's sad what happens to companion animals. People are assholes, and animals act out of instinct. But it's even sadder to come home for 15 years to a mess every goddamned night and eventually have to put the animal in the basement. When my dog finally died I was sad for a few days, then relieved. I'll never own another dog unless they live outdoors 100% of the time.

 

My second piece of advice: Find a good taxidermist. We kill hundreds of millions of chickens, pigs, cows, etc. every year for food. Some of these animals are at least as sentient as companion animals. Why we value dogs and cats more than those other creatures is a mystery I'll never understand.

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Bring her inside, not a rant but a solution. All my cats have been strays or ferals, they get over the outside thing.

I don't think it's fair, or humane, to restrict an animal that's experienced the great outdoors to the not-so-great indoors. Maybe they're perfectly happy. Just my opinion. All our cats have always bee indoor/outdoor. Two were hit by cars (one, who survived, is still with us at 18 yrs of age). The other, the semi-feral beast, has killed something every night for the past week.

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im not sure i'd use those words per se, but i do find it much harder to de-freedomize my cat than many do...freedom is important to animals also...i can see how happy she is after a half-day out especially on a nice day...again freedom vs risk...i have quite a delema on my hands.

Great post. 

 

If your pet dies doing its thing in the great outdoors, it died happy. 

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My second piece of advice: Find a good taxidermist. We kill hundreds of millions of chickens, pigs, cows, etc. every year for food. Some of these animals are at least as sentient as companion animals. Why we value dogs and cats more than those other creatures is a mystery I'll never understand.

I find this entirely too difficult to believe that you can't understand how people value certain animals over others.  I'm probably one of, if not, the only "tree huggers / animals rights" people on here and even *I* grasp this concept.

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Great post. 

 

If your pet dies doing its thing in the great outdoors, it died happy. 

There is a wierd analogy along these lines...

 

Isn't keeping a pet that has lived its life in freedom locked in a house when it wants to go out, similiar to what the "Nany-Staters" want to do with the rest of us (metophorically speaking)? IE for "your" safty, no guns, no pocket knives, no large cokes, bicycle helments, manditory healthcare, etc.

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There is a wierd analogy along these lines...

 

Isn't keeping a pet that has lived its life in freedom locked in a house when it wants to go out, similiar to what the "Nany-Staters" want to do with the rest of us (metophorically speaking)? IE for "your" safty, no guns, no pocket knives, no large cokes, bicycle helments, manditory healthcare, etc.

 

 

Cats are not people they are animals and they are property. Cats want all kinds of things you don't give them, you don't just let them have their way. Unless you are the Crazy Cat Lady. And that movie ends the same way every single time. Closed catsket.

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I find this entirely too difficult to believe that you can't understand how people value certain animals over others.  I'm probably one of, if not, the only "tree huggers / animals rights" people on here and even *I* grasp this concept.

Talk to someone who owns a teeny weeny farm. Say 3-4 pigs, a few cows, 12-15 chickens. Ask them how they feel about killing their animals for food. Chickens are at least as friendly as cats. Pigs are said to be more intelligent than most Democrats. Well, certainly more than dogs or cats. I read the saddest story a few months back about a pig who "knew" he was about to be slaughtered. 

 

Yet we do this millions of times per day.

 

Euro-Americans are the only people who have horrible guilt about eating dogs and cats. 

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Bring her inside, not a rant but a solution. All my cats have been strays or ferals, they get over the outside thing.

You have obviously never owned a cat. You can't keep a cat in a pen unless it has a top. They climb; they escape. Our first cat climbed a 12-foot cinderblock wall back in 1986. Took us 18 hours to get the little bugger back.

 

And if you put a top on they'll go crazy unless the pen is several acres in area. 

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OP: The following is for your reference.

 

Six years ago my wife and I rescued Sasha; a feral female at five months of age. Our fourth rescue.

 

When we brought her home and let her out of the carrier in our all-glass sunroom, she went BESERK trying to get out. She literally climbed the window mullions to the second floor level trying to find a way out. We have NEVER let her out since, at all.

 

Six years later: every night when I get into bed, she immediately jumps up to snuggle, be stroked, and purr madly. The one odd thing that remains: I CANNOT pick her up under any circumstance.

 

So do what you will with the cat habitat; I'm sure your cat will appreciate it. But DON'T let it go outside again. It doesn't 'need' to. And there is NOTHING good for the cat in the wild that it can't have indoors. And there's EVERYTHING that's bad; disease, parasites, injury and death included.

 

Your cat will never hold it against you.

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OP: The following is for your reference.

 

Six years ago my wife and I rescued Sasha; a feral female at five months of age. Our fourth rescue.

 

When we brought her home and let her out of the carrier in our all-glass sunroom, she went BESERK trying to get out. She literally climbed the window mullions to the second floor level trying to find a way out. We have NEVER let her out since, at all.

 

Six years later: every night when I get into bed, she immediately jumps up to snuggle, be stroked, and purr madly. The one odd thing that remains: I CANNOT pick her up under any circumstance.

 

So do what you will with the cat habitat; I'm sure your cat will appreciate it. But DON'T let it go outside again. It doesn't 'need' to. And there is NOTHING good for the cat in the wild that it can't have indoors. And there's EVERYTHING that's bad; disease, parasites, injury and death included.

 

Your cat will never hold it against you.

Your story is fantastic. And I am hopeful. But there is one thing the a Cat can't get indoors. The freedom to roam as her will allows (risk noted).

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CA, I have cats that have lived outside for for 5+ years completely feral who I could open the door wide and wouldn't leave once used to the inside. This isn't a constitutional issue, the cats are not evolved to deal with anti-freeze, traffic, and sociopaths teenagers. 

 

This is more an issue for you then the cat.

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CA, I have cats that have lived outside for for 5+ years completely feral who I could open the door wide and wouldn't leave once used to the inside. This isn't a constitutional issue, the cats are not evolved to deal with anti-freeze, traffic, and sociopaths teenagers. 

 

This is more an issue for you then the cat.

Vlad, I am not sure. My cat truly loves and enjoys the outdoors and doing a little wandering. This is their nature of course, and keeping them in the house is somewhat like keeping them in a cadge at least at some level...Nevertheless, I realize that if not now, as she gets older I have no choice but to keep her in more and more. She has gone from being out 14 hours a day at first, to 7 now, in the 6 years I've had her. After last weeks incident I am going to reduce it to 4 hours in AM which is her high-energy time.

 

So getting back to an outdoor safe habitate. That could be the perfect solution for her (and me ;-))....I have adecent size yard. I am thinking of expanding my deck quite a bit.

 

So I am looking at either a cat proof fence (no easy task) for a big chunk of my property; Or expanding my deck and putting an heavy, wide, mesh screening so she can sun bath. It would have to have a "roof" so she can't climb out. And I guess several gates so I can throw the snow that I suffled off it.

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Cats are not people they are animals and they are property. Cats want all kinds of things you don't give them, you don't just let them have their way. Unless you are the Crazy Cat Lady. And that movie ends the same way every single time. Closed catsket.

I don't think there is a cat owner on the planet who feels thier cat is thier property...

 

They are very intellegent, very independend, free spirits. :-)

 

This is not as black and white as you portray. Ristricting her liberty, which she has become acustom to over many years, is a big step. (It is likely different for a house cat that has never tasted the outdoors perhapes, I wouldn't know).

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